


wild honey

by keatz



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, also, battle gfs, sentinel gang, that's it that's the whole thing, there's a bunch of fighting, with uncreative monsters, yasha being gay, yasha loves the m9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24153139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keatz/pseuds/keatz
Summary: Beau wears blood like other people wear jewellery.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 12
Kudos: 176





	wild honey

**Author's Note:**

> _Wild honey has the scent—of freedom,  
>  Dust—of a ray of sun,  
> A girl’s mouth—of violets.  
> But gold—has no perfume.  
> Water—like mignonette.  
> And like apples—love.  
> But we have learned that  
> Blood smells only of blood._
> 
> **  
> _Anna Akhmatova_  
>  **

Beau wears blood like other people wear jewellery. 

Her hair is streaked with it, and her face, her arms, her deep blue robes, with blood and sweat and dirt, and there are a hundred cuts and a hundred bruises across her skin, red and purple blooming on brown.

And when Beau grins (of course she grins, beaten nearly to death, covered in blood and guts, some her own and some not)—when Beau grins, she shows off all her teeth. When Beau grins it's really more of a grimace, teeth clenched and eyes flashing, fists flying at speeds that should be impossible. When Beau grins there is blood on her teeth, and she spits and wipes and goes on fighting, fists painted red.

Yasha has to tear her eyes away from that grin as she rushes to flank with Beau and brings her blade down on the creature they're fighting, slicing through dead bone and flesh and skin like so much wet dirt. It should be terrifying, she thinks. Her grinning like that, covered in blood—it should be disgusting, ugly.

Afterwards, the ground is cool beneath Yasha as she sits, and watches Beau root through rotten flesh looking for anything valuable. Blood drips down to the already red ground, red spilling on red in a way that shouldn't make sense. 

It frames her face like a crown, a circlet, and Yasha watches her spit on the ground as the others go about healing themselves and dealing with the aftermath of the battle.

"Hey, Yasha," Beau calls out, and it takes a moment for her to remember that it's  _ her _ Beau's calling out to, Yasha, that's her name.

"Yeah?" Her voice cracks a little, hoarse after the fight.

"You could use some armour, right? You're always up front with me when we're fighting and you get hit a lot," Beau holds up a piece of slightly bloody but well-made leather armour, patterned with strange runes and squiggles she can't quite read, and tosses it towards Yasha.

"Think it might be enchanted or some shit, we should ask Caleb to take a look at it. But it looks decent, yeah? You wanna use it?"

Yasha picks it up, the leather still warm under her fingers, and hums.

"That's very nice of you, Beau, but armour is...you know, not my thing. I usually fight better without it," she smiles at Beau. "But thank you for thinking of me."

And, really, Yasha can't help but feel a little touched. Bloodstained armour ripped off a freshly slain undead creature shouldn't feel like an affectionate gesture, and yet here they are. A lot of things aren't what they should be.

"Of course," Beau shrugs, all cool and unbothered and indifferent, although her eyes flash and her fists clench and Yasha has to hide a grin. "I'm the same, y'know. Don't like armour, just slows me down. I don't know how the others wear that shit."

Yasha nods, and it's quiet for a while until Beau gets up and takes the armour from Yasha, muttering something about showing it to Caleb, and she smiles as Beau walks away, not bothering to wipe the blood off her face.

* * *

The air is golden with dust and sunlight when they finally take a break after hours of riding. 

Jester's already complained about being hungry five times now (Yasha kept count) and Caduceus has offered to cook up some lunch more times than that, so they figure this is as good a time as any to rest a little. 

The horses are probably tired too.

Yasha ties them to a nearby tree as the others set their things up. She can faintly hear Nott threatening someone—probably Fjord—and can't help but smile as she pets each horse on the head. 

Do horses eat pocket bacon? She's got some in her pack that Beau gave her this morning. They didn't really have a lot of horses back in Xhorhas, and the ones they had in the circus ate pretty much anything they were given. Molly used to joke about feeding patrons to them, sometimes.

They probably don't eat bacon, she decides, just as something hits her shoulder and rolls down to her feet.

"Give him an apple," Beau says, nodding to the slightly dusty fruit at Yasha's feet, biting into one herself. "Horses like apples."

"Thank you, Beau." He does seem to like it. His mane is very soft in her hands, it feels nice.

"You want one? I was bringing that for you but I could go get another," Beau says, walking closer. Her hair is coming loose a little, golden in the sunlight, and her eyes are clear and bright. Yasha's always liked that about her. How clear her eyes are. 

There's strength in those eyes, a strength Yasha herself will probably never know even with all her muscles and skill, that Beau—tiny, thin Beau whom she can pick up without breaking a sweat—seems to have been born with. 

Beau looks like she was born with blood on her knuckles, like she hasn't ever stopped fighting, all her life, and it's a little sad but also a little bit like looking into a mirror. 

"No, that's alright," Yasha says, and Beau shrugs but doesn't walk away. She takes another bite out of her apple, and the juice that drips out looks golden now, in the sunlight, in her mouth. 

There's still some blood on her face, just in the corners. They haven't been able to properly wash up yet, and it should look disgusting but it doesn't—it really, really doesn't, and now Beau's looking up at her with a hint of a smile and her breath smells like apples, and when did she get so close and—her eyes are so clear. 

"You're very strong," Yasha blurts out, stepping back.

"Huh?" Beau raises an eyebrow. Her piercings look golden too, glinting in the sun.

Huh, indeed. What is she doing? Yasha's always been clumsy with words, especially in this language. It's why she sticks to doing things rather than saying things usually, but thinking about  _ doing _ things when Beau's standing so close with her eyes so sharp and her mouth curved like that is...scary.

What is she doing?

"Well, you know. You're just. Strong." Yasha shrugs.

"Right," Beau snorts. "I probably can't even lift half as much as you can, but. Alright."

"No, I mean, you know. Mentally, I suppose…emotionally?" Yasha can't stop the doubt from creeping into that sentence, because what is she saying?

"And, well, don't sell yourself short," she continues. "You're so good at punching! I can't punch nearly as good as you."

"I  _ am  _ pretty good at punching," Beau grins and steps closer.

"You're the best. Such a good puncher." Yasha smiles weakly. 

She stands there and watches Beau eat her apple and keeps petting her horse, and thanks the Stormlord and the Wildmother and every other god when she hears Caduceus call them to lunch.

* * *

Yasha loves watching the sun rise. It's something she tries not to miss. The rest of the party knows by now to let her have the last watch, whenever possible.

She's glad she has the watch alone this time. Well—she doesn't, not really; she was supposed to wake Caleb up, but he looks so tired. He always looks tired. 

She looks at him now, hair like burnished copper, like the red flowers in her book—like fire—in the brightening glow. She wonders how someone can look so exhausted when they're asleep.

She likes the Nein, she really does—she  _ loves _ them. No matter how hard she's had to work to be able to say it, even to herself, she loves them. But sometimes Yasha wants to watch the sun rise or look for flowers or dip her toes in cool springwater, and she likes it when it's quiet. Everyone she's ever loved has been anything but, and she knows how scary quiet can be (Obann never chattered about donuts the way Jester does, and Lorenzo never went on about card readings like Molly did, and her tribespeople certainly never talked about the stars the way Zuala did). But sometimes—just sometimes, and never for long—it's nice.

It's certainly nice now, here, on this gentle slope overlooking a field of violets. It's a good vantage point, in case there's any danger, and more importantly, the land looks like it's covered in purple flames. Not quite fire—not red enough or hot enough—but more like some of the stranger magic she's seen Jester or Caleb use in battle. It's very pretty. The birds are starting to sing and the ground is getting warmer under her hands, and it's all just so very pretty.

Naturally, a horde of ravenous, bloodthirsty  _ somethings  _ shows up not five minutes later, and it's definitely not quiet anymore—what with all the yelling and the explosions and the rather indescribable sounds of a giant spectral lollipop smashing into flesh. Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted, Yasha supposes.

As she finishes off the creature she's fighting and moves to the next one, she's not surprised to find Beau punching away at it across from her. Beau's pretty quick, and she's really the only one apart from Yasha herself who gets her hands dirty and fights up front. Well, Fjord does sometimes too these days, but he's all the way on the other end of the field, sword glinting in the morning sun, so it doesn't really matter. And, well, Molly used to—but she supposes that doesn't really matter either.

But really, Yasha isn't surprised to find herself flanking this creature with Beau. This is what they do together, this is how they fight. The monster tries to run, when it realises it's got more of its weird green blood on Beau's fists than in its body, but it meets a pretty quick end when both Beau and Yasha grab it by the shoulders so Yasha can deliver a final blow that beheads it cleanly. Beau grins at Yasha when she notices—just as Yasha does—that they both moved at the same time without really thinking about it.

They make a pretty good team.

"I fuckin' love you, you know that?" Beau whoops. "God, the way you—" She mimes swinging a sword, with a far too loud  _ whoosh _ sound. "Fuck yeah!"

Beau laughs, punching Yasha's shoulder lightly before running off to find the next creature to disembowel. 

Yasha can't stop smiling.  _ I love you too,  _ she tries to say, but the words are stuck in her throat. Or maybe that's the monster trying to strangle her. She pushes it off her back, and she's still smiling as she watches her feet stain green. She must look pretty fucked up.

Later, when they're all sitting in a circle around Caduceus who's muttering words she doesn't understand, Yasha nudges Beau and smiles at her.

"The way you—" She mimes punching, followed by a slightly overzealous bo staff slam. "Is pretty cool too."

"Aw, yeah, although I could've—"

"I love you. Too," Yasha's throat feels like it's burning. It's probably just the injuries, Caduceus hasn't finished his prayer thing yet.

Beau's eyes widen and she opens her mouth and closes it again before she speaks.

"I, uh. Yeah. We're a team, right? And we fight good together, so, yeah! Yeah, it's all. Pretty cool. You're pretty cool." Beau's grinning again, but it's far too wide this time. It looks a little painful.

"Pretty cool," Yasha agrees, and looks away.

Beau's still looking at her. Yasha closes her eyes. 

_ What the fuck. _

"I think you're more than just pretty cool." Yasha says. What the fuck?

"Oh– uh. Yeah?" Beau looks shocked and maybe a little...loose. Her hair's a mess and her clothes seem too large and her eyes are so wide. She looks a little unreal right now, like how it looks sometimes when Jester makes two copies of herself stand in the same place. Like there's two Beaus sitting there in the same place, mostly overlapping, but occasionally a few points jut out and—and it's just really very hard to look at her right now.

So Yasha doesn't, and looks at the grass, at the sky, at the crushed violet in her hand, and says, "Yeah."

"Me too." Beau says, and Yasha smiles.

She's still smiling when they bed down that night, Beau's hair glinting in the firelight as she takes first watch with Fjord. 

_ I love you, _ Yasha thinks as she watches Beau punch Fjord playfully over some awful joke he's made. 

_ I love them all, _ she watches Fjord fall over and Beau apologise even as she chuckles,  _ but I also love you.  _

Yasha dreams of violets that night. She nearly cries when each of the flowers opens up and whispers into her palm,  _ I love you _ .

* * *

When they kiss for the first time, Beau is inevitably covered in blood. Her hair is sticky with it and it should be disgusting, but it really, really isn't. A lot of things aren't what they should be.

She's warm under Yasha's hands, and she can't stop thinking about how Beau's eyes looked right before she leaned in. Like they were alive. Are alive.

Yasha laughs a little, and feels Beau's lips curve against hers. It feels so good—no matter how hard it was to finally stop denying herself this, no matter how scary—it feels fucking fantastic.

And when it's Beau that whispers into her mouth and not the dream-violets into her palm  _ (I love you. I love you),  _ Yasha really does cry.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so ive been putting off writing this for MONTHS oh my god.
> 
> sorry abt the boring ass monsters ✌️😔 theyre all just vaguely undead
> 
> anyway i hope u liked this. cr tumblr is [@feyking](https://feyking.tumblr.com) come talk beauyasha to me !!


End file.
